Zero Dark Thirty actor reveals details on the making of one of history's most powerful films

The film about the hunt for Osama bin Laden is proving to be a lucrative one. Zero Dark Thirty brought in $24 million during its official opening weekend Jan. 11. The film’s star, actress Jessica Chastain, also took home a Golden Globe Jan. 13 for Best Actress in a Motion Picture, Drama. Venezuelan actor Edgar Ramirez, who plays a CIA official named “Larry from Ground Branch” came to Soho Beach House in Miami Beach Jan. 9 to talk about the film many are calling the must-see movie of the year.

How did you prepare for your role in Zero Dark Thirty?

“I tried to read and research as much as possible on the topic and events following 9/11 and the tracking of Osama bin Laden. I also tried to talk to people who might have been operating in that type of field and were trained in ground surveillance, which is what my character does. He’s a ground branch officer and his job is to become invisible. He has to disappear and blend in and become local in a way. It was complex because of all the restrictions we had in the making of this movie and all the confidentiality agreements. It was like a puzzle for everybody because of the sensitivity of the subject matter and access the writer had to firsthand information.”

What were some of the challenges you faced making this film?

“We could not read the whole script at once. We were just given different pieces of the script until much later in the process when we all got together on location. We were handed a copy of the script for a couple of hours and then we had to hand it back. There was no way to easily connect the content, so it was very interesting. It was a puzzle and everybody held a piece of that puzzle. We all had a huge confidence in Kathryn Bigelow and Mark Boal. When I finally got through the whole script, I thought it was fantastic. I loved it.”

What was it like filming in Pakistan and did you feel vulnerable while you were there?

“We didn’t actually shoot in Pakistan, but we shot very close. We shot in northern India, not more than four hours away from where the real events took place in Pakistan. There was a lot of tension. And there were demonstrations because we were making India pass as Pakistan and some people didn’t like that, especially in the border region. They didn’t want people to believe Chandigarh could be Pakistan or that Chandigarh could be harboring terrorists. They were very offended. There was one scene where Kathryn and I were in my character’s car and there were 300 people coming with sticks and protesting. We had to leave and continue shooting later. It was intense but there was no way for us to stop.”

Were you able to improvise any lines in the film?

“Sometimes you can improvise in a script, but you could not take that liberty in this film. I absolutely love this movie and I think it’s an amazing thriller. In a way, it gives you the feeling of a documentary, but it’s not a documentary. It has this investigative element that makes it so exciting.”

How close is the film to the actual events?

“It’s hard to tell. We had access to first hand accounts and information, but in the end, we were recreating reality. There’s no way to reconstruct reality. It happened once. What you do is reinterpret and recreate. Even if you have the person who lived it and did it next to you, the event happened just once.”

What’s your opinion on the torture in the film?

“The movie doesn’t pull any punches. It’s a movie that navigates very harsh facts. War is a tragedy. It’s not pretty and in my opinion, there are no winners. Everybody’s a victim from the one who’s suffering pain to the person inflicting it. What I really appreciate from a dramatic and human point of view is you don’t know who’s more broken during the torture scenes--the guy who’s being tortured or the one who’s torturing him. You see two human beings communicating through pain. There’s a relationship between them. They’re trapped and kind of like sentenced and condemned to each other until something is worked out.

We all have very personal relationships to what happened on 9/11 and the events after tracking Osama bin Laden. Nobody can escape from the influence of that.”

What were you the doing when it was announced Osama bin Laden was killed?

“I was in New York having drinks with friends uptown and then I immediately ran to Ground Zero. I said ‘We need to get the hell out of here and go downtown.’ I went to Ground Zero and stayed there until 5 a.m. I got there when the NYPD was closing off the perimeter because a lot of people were going there. Little did I know three months later, Kathryn was going to call me about this film. I saw people who were cheering that Osama bin Laden was killed but there were also people saying ‘We cheer for peace, not for death.’ So you could see there were different opinions and points of view to that event and that made it interesting. This movie is not a movie of death. This movie is the opposite of death. It doesn’t rejoice in the pain of death or the killing. I think that’s what I find so interesting about this film.”